Ch. 3: Religious Expression in Public Places

George Ricker · Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 9:30 am Post subject: Re: Military Chaplains

See ... I told you it would make you feel better. ::204

George

"Godlessness is not about denying the existence of nonsensical beings. It is the starting point for living life without them."

Godless in America by George A. Ricker

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

River, let's keep this brief or perhaps we can move it to a political thread.

river: So the whole "conservative" versus "liberal" thing is basically about a few key social issues since both spend very highly on various programs, both favor big government no matter what they say, etc.

But that’s kind of my point. Though I don’t necessarily agree that “liberal” can be narrowed down to merely social issues, even these issues the “liberal” Democrats have not weighed in on for a while. Look at the past month, we had the VT shooting and the ruling on Carhart in which the Supreme Court eliminated a specific method of abortion. NOTHING came from ANY national “liberals” on either of these key issues. Here were prime opportunities for Democrats to address two bread and butter issues—gun control and a woman’s right to choose—and they were mute on the subjects, and this within a presidential primary race. They’d rather spend their efforts legislating on foreign affairs, a subject wholly outside of the congressional realm when compared with other national issues.

JulianTheApostate · Junior Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 308 Gender:

When reading this chapter's cases, I usually supported the side with less government involvement in religion. Since everyone here seems to share that opinion, I'll focus on the exceptions to that tendency.

Government holidays on days like Good Friday doesn't bother me. The way I look at it, if you're choosing which days should be holidays, you might as well select the days that are, on most convenient for the general population, on average.

Also, providing chaplains for people, such as soldiers, who wouldn't otherwise have religious access is fine. Members of the military who are stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan right now should have the opportunity to practice their religion.

Government establishment of religion concerns me when people are exposed to it involuntarily or automatically. I'm fine with people having the opportunity to go to church on Good Friday or seek out a military chaplain. However, a cross on a hill, a Christmas display on public property, a government motto that mentions God, and a pledge with "under God" all thrust religion on a individuals without any deliberate effort on their part.

Edited by: JulianTheApostate at: 5/31/07 12:33 am

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

Gee Julian, you're just ripping right through this book. How do you like it so far? Learning anything new?

JtA: Government holidays on days like Good Friday doesn't bother me. The way I look at it, if you're choosing which days should be holidays, you might as well select the days that are, on most convenient for the general population, on average.

The claims against Good Friday observances is that the holiday is specifically chosen for religious purposes, or even more so for its Christian religious purposes. Without a clearly demonstrated secular purpose to a holiday (i.e. Santa Clause, gifts, “Jingle Bells,” Charles Dickens, fruitcake for Christmas; Easter Bunny, Easter baskets, jelly beans, eggs, fluorescent yellow and pink chicks and bunnies for Easter) then the holiday violates the Establishment Clause. Consider that while you might not mind a state holiday being chosen for the convenience of Christians to attend Good Friday observances, what kind of message does that send to Jews who must take personal days for Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, or any various religious rituals that are observed through personal days rather than state holidays? And utilizing tax dollars to pay for the holidays of state employees, with the intention of making it more convenient for them to attend to their religious rituals, clearly violates establishment.

JtA: I'm fine with people having the opportunity to go to church on Good Friday…

As am I, I just don’t want the state footing the bill for these holidays and I certainly don’t want holidays that leave religious believers of the non-Christian variety out in the wind. The public is free to go to church on Friday, hell if they need to take a personal/vacation/unpaid leave day so be it. But they shouldn’t expect the state to fund a state holiday for their religion.

JulianTheApostate · Junior Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 308 Gender:

The book is a pretty fast read. Mainly, I'm trying to wrap my head around legal reasoning in general. Other kinds of questions are much more familiar to me: what's going in the world, where are things headed, what are the consequences of different courses of action, why do people behave the way they do. This legal stuff is a different dimension. Meanwhile, all these split court decisions highlight that legal reasoning has lots of intrinsic subjectivity.

Regarding previously mentioned topics ...

Here's an article about religion intolerance against non-Christians at the US Air Force Academy --
www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/03....religion/
I've read a few news stories about related topics, but none of them mentioned military chaplains.

riverc0il: There is a big push in the leftist, liberal, democratic candidates to appear religious.

Much of the US population is religious, and it's not surprising that politicians would try to appeal to them. Besides, the last two Democratic presidents (Carter and Clinton) took their Christian faith quite seriously. As an aside, I wouldn't characterize most Democratic office holders as "leftist".

irishrosem: I haven’t specifically researched this, but it seems to me that U.S. legal history tends to make slow but steady progress in recognizing and granting civil rights and in upholding the whole of the Constitution.

Across US history, society has become more socially liberal, and the courts have reflected those societal views. However, views on economic issues have oscillated, with attitudes moving towards the right since Reagan took office.


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